You Were Made To Meet Your Maker
by mrspetervincent
Summary: Post-Reichenbach. Sherlock returns after three years to an empty flat and horrible news. Trigger Warning: suicide and character death. Title from the song "Awake My Soul" by Mumford and Sons.
1. Preface

**Warnings**: Suicide and Character Death  
**AN**: Oh god, this entire thing was so painful to write. I have chapter one writtten, so it should be up soon.

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John sat in his bedroom, perched at the edge of his bed. The gun lay in his hand, cold and metal against his soon to be no-longer warm skin. His eyes met the hand-written note, folded neatly on the floor below him, before they slowly closed and he raised his hand to align the barrel perfectly with his temple.

Sherlock Holmes' last words were "Goodbye John," whispered into a cellphone before falling off of a building onto concrete, a year ago to the date.

John Watson's last words were "I'm coming, Sherlock," whispered into the emptiness of a flat designed for two and occupied by one as a trigger was softly pulled.


	2. Chapter 1

Sherlock sat on Molly's tacky, floral couch, waiting impatiently for her to arrive. She lived exactly 13 minutes away from St. Bart's, give or take a couple of seconds. Knowing Molly and her chronic punctuality, she should have been home two minutes ago. His eyes were closed as he lounged across teh seat cushions, and when he heard the clicking of locks one room away, the only reaction he had was the raise of an eyebrow.

He heard light footsteps and then a shrill a squeak accompanied by the sound of keys crashing to the ground that informed him of her presence in the room.

"Sherlock!"

"You're late."

He turned quickly so that he was upright on the sofa, looking up at Molly with his hands in his lap.

"There was...traffic, no, why am I explaining myself? Why are you in my house?"

"Where's John?"

Immediate panic set into her every feature and movement of her body, in the clenching of her fists and the dialation of her pupils, but he chose to ignore it for the time being. "I went to Baker Street when Mrs. Hudson was out and he wasn't there. My things weren't either, which was to be expected, but neither were any of his. There was a layer of dust over everything, which suggested the removing of his belongings happened a long time ago."

Molly didn't say anything, so Sherlock continued. "I thought, did he move? But no, you would've told me about that. You were keeping it a secret, which suggests it was something much worse. So tell me, Molly. Where's John?"

The way Molly was worrying her bottom lip between her teeth and avoiding Sherlock's eyes led him to believe he was correct in his assumption, and her long period of silence was worrying him. "Molly...where's John?" He asked once more, this time with hesitance. The thought of what her answer might be was beginning to scare him.

When Molly's eyes finally met Sherlock's, he noticed tears slowly welling up in them. "I've been meaning to tell you."

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as even more fear and apprehension set in and built inside of him. "Molly, where's he gone?"

"I wanted to wait until the right time, but it never seemed," she inhaled deeply as a tear fell past her eyelashes, "like the right time, it never..."

"Molly." Sherlock stood up then, his fists clenched into tight balls at his sides. "_Where is John?"_ he shouted. What could possibly be so bad that Molly was keeping from him? He had so many ideas running through his mind, but only one stuck out to him, one horrible one that he was forcing down like vomit.

"_He's gone, alright?"_ Molly bellowed back, wrapping her arms around herself and trembling as tears rolled freely down her face.

Sherlock froze. "What do you mean..._gone?_" His voice went from yelling down from barely above a whisper.

"He thought you were dead. He was so...so sad, all of the time, so alone, no matter how many people he was with. At one point, he didn't even try to look happy. He would just mope around, totally emotionless. Then, he stopped leaving his flat all together. I went by there a couple times, and he was always in the same spot, that one damn armchair just looking off into the distance and I don't know, thinking, I guess. Thinking about what, I don't know. About you, about your death, about death in general, I assume."

She took a shaky breath before she could continue speaking, gulping down air and wiping her face with her sleeve. "He...John...he c-comitted..." She gasped as another sob wracked through her body. "Damnit, he killed himself, alright? He shot himself in the head, on the anniversary of the day you had supposedly offed yourself." Molly had thought that getting that off of her chest would've helped, but it only made her feel worse.

Sherlock stood completely stock still, physically incapable of moving for the time being. His jaw seemed to be wired shut for what seemed like an eternity before he was even able to say the first two words that came to mind.

"John's...dead."

Molly's eyes squeezed shut and more tears forced themselves out. As she nodded, Sherlock felt anger well up inside of him.

"John is _dead,_ and you didn't _tell me?_"

"Sh-Sherlock..."

"He died one year after, and I've been gone for three. You let me believe John was alive for _two years?_"

"I'm so-"

"You, Molly, told me, that my _best friend_ was fine, that he was moving on with life, for God's sake, you told me he had a _girlfriend_ at one point," he yelled in disbelief, running a hand through his hair, "but in reality, he was _dead?_"

"I'm sorry, Sherlock, I'm so, so-"

"_Sorry isn't enough, Molly!_" Sherlock exclaimed; his thoughts were in a frenzy, and he was scrambling to form any sort of coherency. "Sorry...sorry won't bring him back. Nothing will."

"Now you know how John felt!" Molly spat at him. "You were his best mate, Sherlock. You even said so yourself. You can't just leave and make him think you're not coming back and then not expect some sort of consequence!"

"I did! But not..._this,_ never _this!_"

"Well, Sherlock, it happened." She sniffled, wiping her face with her already dirty sleeve. "And you can't change that. None of us can."

They sat in silence as the weight of what they had just said sunk in. John was gone and never coming back, because he thought he was leaving to be with Sherlock.

"He left a note, if that's any consolation." Sherlock was snapped out of his thoughts as Molly spoke.

"What?"

"A note, Sherlock. He left a note."

Sherlock looked at her for a bit before smirking with a morbid realization. "It's what people do, isn't it? Leave a note?" He whispered, quoting himself.

Molly tilted her head in confusion, arms still wrapped tightly around her torso and face red and puffy from crying.

"Nevermind. Where is it?" Sherlock asked, walking to the door and buttoning his coat coolly, as if nothing had happened.

"I don't remember. It's either with Harry or Mrs. Hudson, most likely the latter considering he didn't get on very well with his sister."

Sherlock nodded curtly and walked out the door into the crisp winter air without a word, hailing a cab. He could feel sadness weighing him down as he drove through the streets of London, flowing through his body from the tips of his curls all the way to the tips of his toes and fingers, seeping into his bones. He could feel a mental and physical breakdown inevitably coming, but not then, sitting in a cab with some stranger driving him around. He would wait until he was alone, and then he would allow himself to grieve.

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**AN**: reviews and constructive criticism are appreciated! :D


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